Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Flying Birdy on June 04, 2019, 08:41:46 AM
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This is just one of those hull-mods I've rarely used. The few occasions when I have used it was on all tactical laser ships where I added it for PD. Even then, I did not find it to be particularly noticeable or effective as the turn rate on the tactical lasers was too slow to catch a lot of missiles.
Out of curiosity, how do you guys typically use it? What are some ships/builds that work well with it?
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I think it works well with IR pulse lasers if the ships has a Gunnery Implants officer, otherwise it doesn't work too well.
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If you seriously rely on energy PD (rather than just pair of anti-salamander rear-facing PD lasers), it's kind of must. You *do* want your PD to actually fire at missiles/fighters rather than waste flux on flares, right?
Flak/Devastator are AoE, so for them it's not necessary.
Than again, for high-tech ships PD is usually secondary concern, with shield being primary option.
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It works fine with IR Pulse Lasers and Railguns, kinda meh with LAGs, and Tac Lasers as long as you have Turret Gyros. Since all of these can target fighters just fine, and killing fighters is often more efficient than killing the fighter-spawned ordnance, IPDAI is not that useful.
The new fighter system also incentivizes killing fighters and hurting that fighter replacement rate, since everything they fire at you is endless.
I don't use PD lasers much at all anymore. They don't have the damage to reliably kill missiles - especially dangerous and fast missiles like Atropos. It's pretty much either Vulcans, Burst PD or single Flaks for me.
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IPDAI has been seriously upgraded since 0.9a. It is useful with IR Pulse Laser. I disagree with goduranus that Gunnery Implants is required, although it will make it better.
Also, with Advanced Turret Gyros upgraded to +75%, IPDAI Tactical Laser is very good, provided the ship can afford the flux cost - easier said than done.
It is also useful for various PD lasers just for the increased damage against missiles. Mining Laser needs the damage boost from IPDAI to be useful enough, and stronger (LR) PD Lasers become better at anti-missile.
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Wow, I didn't even check to see if it was changed. I take back what I said.
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The turn rate bonus to PD weapons in general, along with buffing all PD+small weapons damage to missiles and the like makes is great at making sure your PD does it's job with no distractions.
I've got my fleet using it in my current play through and their duel machine guns utterly shred anything that comes near them.
It's basically a total PD buffing mod that also allows all small guns to also be PD in addition. Not sure if the PD specific buffs also apply to the small weapons themselves, I'm a little unclear on the wording.
My supporting eagles armed with tac lasers next to my beefy onslaughts are almost untouchable until they flux out, at which point their armour saves the day!
I quite like it and highly reccormend giving it a go if you want to stuff something other then PD into half your weapon slots for a change! Assault guns are surprisingly good stand in for point defence, assuming your flux holds out anyway.
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Wow, I didn't even check to see if it was changed. I take back what I said.
No need. Beam PD even with IPDAI is still a bit weak late in the game, unless pilot has Advanced Countermeasures 3. It just makes them useful enough to be a consideration, or at least a viable (if somewhat inferior) alternative to burst PD. It is still just as weak against fighters or ships.
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I find that LRPD is superior in nearly all ways to Tactical Lasers for PD, unless the player really needs 1000 vs 800 range. On paper Tactical Lasers have higher DPS: in practice they do not. Their poor target tracking and low "extend" speed mean that they spend most of their time not even firing. This is with IPDAI and Turret Gyros on ships like an Eagle, with no advanced optics to lower their turret speed. They are better at killing fighters when NOT using IPDAI, as they ignore missiles and flares by default and go for fighters. But as a PD grid, they are inferior.
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IPDAI has been seriously upgraded since 0.9a. It is useful with IR Pulse Laser. I disagree with goduranus that Gunnery Implants is required, although it will make it better.
Ohh, I didn't notice the IPDAI makes all PD weapons get the best target leading, in that case it does not need Gunnery Implants at all if using PD weapons.
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I find that LRPD is superior in nearly all ways to Tactical Lasers for PD, unless the player really needs 1000 vs 800 range. On paper Tactical Lasers have higher DPS: in practice they do not. Their poor target tracking and low "extend" speed mean that they spend most of their time not even firing. This is with IPDAI and Turret Gyros on ships like an Eagle, with no advanced optics to lower their turret speed. They are better at killing fighters when NOT using IPDAI, as they ignore missiles and flares by default and go for fighters. But as a PD grid, they are inferior.
With Advanced Turret Gyros, Tactical Laser PD is very good. Even better, Tactical Lasers can passthrough missiles and can stuff some missile spam that other beam PD cannot (do as well) due to lack of passthrough. (Okay, it was mentioned they do not fire. I have not experienced that much if at all ever since Turret Gyros upgraded from +50% to +75%. But, I have had PD beams re-firing when I had something targeted, and it is more of a problem with slower extending beams.)
That said, not all ships or loadouts can spare the flux or the OP to afford all of that. For those that can, IPDAI tac lasers are very good.
I generally do not use Tactical Lasers for PD on Falcon/Eagle because they have enough trouble staying flux neutral with their main guns, and they do not have a lot of OP for luxuries. I tend to use either LR PD or Burst PD on them. On the other hand, I have considered IPDAI a few times when I use Tactical Lasers instead of Graviton Beams in the medium mounts. (If I cannot stack enough gravitons for anti-shield, why use them when tactical laser can do the other jobs just as well?)
LR PD is good as budget tac lasers. I consider LR PD more of a general-purpose weapon.
P.S. I guess Ordnance Expert 1 could help speeding up shot/extend speed of Tactical Lasers. Also, I wonder if targeting something interferes with PD re-targeting at times. Player can get around that, but that will not help AI since it is unaware of that interaction.
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Hmm, good question on ordnance expert 1 speeding up the extend speed. I know I have tested it with that skill, but don't know if it effects beams.
I've just found the tac lasers to not actually be firing, so don't like them.
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Than again, for high-tech ships PD is usually secondary concern, with shield being primary option.
I found that getting swarmed by Broadsword or any fighter that carris double kinetic machineguns, tends to overload your shields at a frightening rate. A dozen sabots are nothing compared to such fighter swarms.
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Than again, for high-tech ships PD is usually secondary concern, with shield being primary option.
I found that getting swarmed by Broadsword or any fighter that carris double kinetic machineguns, tends to overload your shields at a frightening rate. A dozen sabots are nothing compared to such fighter swarms.
But you don't need PD specifically against Broadswords or any other fighters, just any small or medium weapons with decent tracking/projectile speeds.
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For me its a must have mod since its a core element to my agressive gameplay. I tend to use shields only on rare occasions so I need to clean up the missile spam (Annihilators, everybody have them and use them to their heart's content).
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In Rebal, I decided that it doubled the efficiency of PD against ordinance and fighters, rather than turning Tac Lasers into PD (which, honestly, is its only use case that's good).
It works great, worth buying for Captains you don't put Advanced Countermeasures 3 on, or when you need an anti-fighter / anti-missile boat in your fleet. Not really worth it if you've put Advanced Countermeasures on them, unless you really, really want to make the ship proof against incoming missiles (Dominator and Onslaught builds, for example).
I think it's pretty meh otherwise, honestly, but then again, I don't have Flares wasting valuable System slots, either.
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IPDAI is a hullmod I also rarely, if ever, use. I think it'd have more some utility if you could both designate which small weapons you want used as PD, and set their targeting priorities - Fighters, Missiles, Mines, Other. A system of diminishing/stacking benefits could be implemented - The fewer turrets you have deisgnated as PD, the more buffs they receive to recoil, leading accuracy and turn-rate. That all might be a bit too much complexity though.
Even more important is that I think PD in general (As well as those converted via IPDAI) should be able to pass-over friendly ships. Fighters and their ordnance can, so why shouldn't the weapons used to defend against them be able to?
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Even more important is that I think PD in general (As well as those converted via IPDAI) should be able to pass-over friendly ships. Fighters and their ordnance can, so why shouldn't the weapons used to defend against them be able to?
This would be awesome to test out. I wonder how it would alter combat tactics and balance? There'd certainly be more incentive to stay in a tight group for maximum PD overlap, and I'd imagine dedicated PD screen ships would be much more effective, as they basically would never have to worry about finding firing angles.
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Even more important is that I think PD in general (As well as those converted via IPDAI) should be able to pass-over friendly ships. Fighters and their ordnance can, so why shouldn't the weapons used to defend against them be able to?
This would be awesome to test out. I wonder how it would alter combat tactics and balance? There'd certainly be more incentive to stay in a tight group for maximum PD overlap, and I'd imagine dedicated PD screen ships would be much more effective, as they basically would never have to worry about finding firing angles.
Yeah, that's the crux of it. Most dedicated- or heavily-PD-oriented loadouts are practically ineffectual because they'll often have the ship they're escorting between them and what they're meant to be defending it from. Yet you have no contol over that positioning unless you're piloting it yourself.